ON THE COMPARISON OF ASIATIC LANGUAGES. 213 
were in two directions, westwards and east is the 
ancestors of the Asiatics having, before their languages 
diverged, possessed a consider able amount of civilisation. 
Dr. Max Miiller has shown that in the interval of less than 
5,000 years, the whole growth of Aryan speech may have 
proceeded from the separation of the descendants of some 
two or three original families; and unless it is contended 
that these were first created on the banks of the Volga, 
there is no linguistic reason for denying that these families 
may have migrated thither from some Asiatic country. The 
condition of these original families has been very variously 
estimated, but the evidence is indisputable which shows 
that they already possessed a certain civilisation, bemg not 
only a pastoral people, but also growing grain, and probably 
travelling in rude waggons. They could count and could 
build, they acknowledged rulers and family relationships, 
though it would seem that they had no method of writing 
until they learnt the art from other races. However much 
their culture may have been over estimated, it 1s impossible 
to show that they were mere savage hunters, scarcely 
superior to the wild beasts that they “encountered. Their 
condition was similar in short to that which has indepen- 
dently been established by linguistic evidence, for the early 
ancestors of the Semitic and Mongolic races 
The labours of such scholars as ‘Fick, Cae ae and others, 
have reduced the Aryan languages to a list of about 450 
original roots, but it has been “perceived by Max Miiller that 
this enumeration errs rather on the side of excess than of 
the reverse. In an interesting paper on the “Simplicity of 
Language,” he claims that the list may be yet further 
condensed to an original enumeration of not more than 150 
roots, which, by subsequent variation, and by the building up 
of words, has produced the enormous totals of modern 
vocabularies. It is mevitable that differences of opinion 
should exist as to the attribution to the true root of many 
dificult words; but the roots as a whole are so well estab- 
lished that they may safely be used for the purposes of a 
wider comparison; and many of the doubts and contradic- 
tions which are due to an exclusive study of Aryan speech 
will, in the future, be cleared away by such wider comparison 
with the other Asiatic languages. 
The Aryan roots are ot three kinds, namely: Ist, those 
consisting of a single consonant with a single vow ale 2nd, 
those aah two conscnants and one vowel; and Sid those 
